RUBY BONES: LASER TOOTH TIGER (A TRACK BY TRACK BREAKDOWN) By Chris Fox of Ruby Bones
Making a record. That’s the dream for us every time. In a world of immediate gratification, blink and you’ll miss it news, and trigger-happy phone wielders, we make records. Thirty to forty five minute slices of music, made to be enjoyed as a whole. If you want to chop it up, enjoy one song at a time, put it into a playlist with other great bands, that’s cool by us. But at the end of the day, our favorite bands make records so we make records. Here’s a rundown of every track on Laser Tooth Tiger with some snippets to enjoy. Long live the record.
PRESS REWIND
Press Rewind was always the final song on the record, despite it taking the longest to come together. We felt it summed up the whole kit and kaboodle nicely, especially once the end solidified into pure party. Matt threw in some classic rawk riffage and leads swiped from the rest of the record, Denis killed it on sax, James got buried in the mix, and Chris possibly made up a word Shakespeare-style. A simple story of a missed romance and a hopeful look to the future; a message to not linger too much on some nostalgic past but rather use it as an affirmation to push forward. Damn this is coming off a bit cheesy but we mean it. Live, laugh, fall in love, party hard, and TURN IT UP.
TALK ABOUT
Talk About is the only acoustic number on the record because even the most high energy band has to chill sometimes. A simple song about falling head over heels Tears For Fears style after learning to live and make peace with yourself. Chris had fun with the wordplay and hip hop references, and is weirdly proud of his creepy and awkward guitar part. Also, shaker is a total bitch to record, way harder than singing and guitar, for real.
HOOK LINE SINKER
We wanted to write a song yelling “MAYBE YOU’RE NOT WEIRD ENOUGH” and stole some Better Than Ezra chords to make it happen. We’re better than every Ezra except Furman, she’s s a god. Musically, the song is the most punk on the record and the solo is the goofiest thing on earth , but as a live band it’s a damn blast to play. Chris got to write lyrics about old-timey punctuation and probably should have been an English or History teacher. Full stop.
PAST LIVES
This is Chris’s latest attempt at sound “cool” in a song and might be the closest he’s come without hitting the mark. Practice makes perfect. A fun little song about dire straights for lovers on the run, Bonnie and Clyde style. This reminds us we still need to watch the movie Badlands, which we hear isn’t a literal retelling of the Stringsteen song but Matt and Chris really wish it was only that. Chris had to convince everyone that “POW!” was cool, and used LCD Soundsystem as his example because nobody would believe him. He stands by the “du TAH!” vocal as well, but that one is probably less awesome.
TERRIBLE
Our producer Skylar put the heaviest tone on this song and it somehow worked but we’ll make fun of him forever about it anyway. James loves this song, its totally his favorite. He loves when Chris is too lazy to come up with a more complicated chorus after completely exhausting himself with endless wordplay in every very long verse. Despite his hatred of Billy Joel, this might as well be Chris’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” in terms of lyrical content. Matt added a lovely counterpoint melody on guitar in the second verse that really brings the part to life if you’re a music nerd. Nerds rule, thank you Matty! Oh, lyrically it’s about getting up and moving on from a breakup, and might be direct sequel to Barry Manilow’s “Copacabana.” We’ll never know, but that song rocks an we will beat up anyone who says otherwise.
ANCIENT POWER
This song is about calling upon the power of your ancestors to help you not stutter through an awkward conversation with a human being. That’s the entire point of the whole song, nothing grander. Car Seat Headrest is probably responsible for the talky bit. For music nerds, Chris actually wrote with a I-V-IV progression despite disliking most things Blues, but once the lead was written the whole thing came together and he accepted the song’s fate. Also, if you turn it up really loud, you can hear the metal growl of a demon in the chorus. We stayed up late, read a little Necronomicon, and were able to channel an ancient deity for a hot minute there. He was shy though, and asked to be buried in the mix a bit. What a humble demon, such a sweetie.
DON’T LOSE YOUR HEAD
Don’t Lose Your Head was our honest attempt to write something positive that didn’t come off superbly cheesy. It’s easy to get down on yourself but equally easy/important to remember that you’ve always got people in your corner who will go to bat for you. Call them, tell them you love them, then get out of bed and carpe that diem, friends.
NOT ENOUGH
Not Enough contains the only use of the word “jugular” in indie rock, don’t @ us. It’s the last gasp of a doomed romance, a screaming high dive into an abyss of solitude, and might have been lightly ripped off by Babymetal, who rawk, so that’s fine. A breakup song to dance to, even if the world is on fire around you.
DRINK ALL NIGHT
Drink All Night is ostensibly a rallying cry to do just that. It’s a bit misleading, but we hope you sing it back to us at a show because it’s honestly a blast to yell. Don’t leave us dancing in the dark, please and thank you. Big thanks to Mike from Boxed Wine for helping Chris belt out that big ol’ chorus, too!
The core riff came out of messing around with Terrible, and it was the last song to sneak onto the record before the cutoff. A lot of the time songs come in pairs and you end up loving both equally. Or if you’re James you lock the ugly one in the basement and feed it slivers of baloney under the door. Damn James, that’s messed up.
ROOFTOPS
Rooftops is the cheeriest song on the record, a nostalgic little trip down memory lane with a bit of a tear in its eye. Sometimes it’s hard to acknowledge how good you had it, but it’s probably wise not to get caught up trying to recapture past moments. There’s glory lying ahead of you, you just need to find it. So relax, play some Mario Kart, throw your ice cream in the rain, and definitely have a babysitter the first time you go to space.
TIRED EYES
Tired Eyes contains the massive riff that just had to start this record, along with some sweet harmonized guitars, gang vocals, and a fun little bounce we hadn’t done before as a band. It’s about getting up and going out, being young, playing basement shows, and getting blitzed with your best friends. A bit of Thin Lizzy permeated our cerebral cortexes on this one, as did Japandroids and The War on Drugs. We knew this song had to be epic if it was going to work, so we pulled out all the stops and even did some handclaps. We wanted cowbell in it, but there weren’t any farms close by. Next time, promise!
Anyway, hope you enjoyed our little track by track here, now please go listen to this bad boy start to finish and let us know what you think! Love you all and thanks for being part of our journey.